


The Streets of Macau

by 13Radishes



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Badass, Blackjack, Gambling, Gen, casino - Freeform, mahjong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13Radishes/pseuds/13Radishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casino AU! Including Kurasuno, Nekoma and even Aoba Josai eventually.</p><p>Hinata Shouyo is a blackjack player dumped in the gambling city of Macau, when his life of playing on the streets is destroyed, he is picked up by Kurasuno, a casino known to be past it's glory days, brought down by a scandalous incident. He meets old enemies and learns new ways to play, but now he's on the other side of the table, as a dealer.</p><p>NOTE: This is not a completed story, I'm in the process of actively updating it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wanderer & The Angel

**Author's Note:**

> This AU includes not only blackjack but Mahjong, thus the reason for making Macau my city of choice.   
> I used to love Mahjong movies as a child and have never read a fic about it so tadaa~ 
> 
> Also lots of descriptions of suits, because c'mon, Kurasuno babies wearing suits (drools shamelessly in a corner). 
> 
> Seriously though, I love this AU, I think it's extremely badass, and I hope you think so too. 
> 
> I'll include the rules of both blackjack and Mahjong in the end notes of this chapter, so please feel free to read it if you're interested

Macau.

One of world’s biggest gambling utopias, next to it’s elder brother Las Vegas, where lights flashed, spinning tales of fame and fortune from the moment you dared step in, where waitresses wink at you and the smell of money clogs up your nostrils, the insisting lure of every blackjack table too tempting to resist, the Mahjong ones even more so with the noise of the shuffling tiles as an added feature. 

The particular tiles at Kurasuno were always topped with a gold and orange glint, in which a tiny black feather was carved and painted jet-black, standing out against the white and yellow below it. The Casino was a towering skyscraper, with the Japanese Kanji standing out amongst the Chinese that was written everywhere else, “Fly” it said, hung on their 45th floor with a gleaming pride. It used to be a hottest place in town; it’s lights casting over the city like a shining beacon. Nowadays though, people would say it’s fallen from its former glory, lived past it’s golden age, even though the plastic on this tops of their tiles remained. 

“Listen up!”

A dark haired man barked as his crocodile shoes made distinct noises on the Italian marble, he was dressed sharply, his suit jet black, an orange pocket square the only splash of colour in his wardrobe. It tailored to his broad shoulders, which his tie struggled to control. “I want you guys sharp at all times you hear?” the team of younger dealers hollered in response, “there’ve been thieves in here lately, card counters, tile smugglers and such,” he stopped and sighed, exasperated, as if this had kept him up all night. “You are the gatekeepers, do you understand? The front line of defense against them,” his face softened slightly, only for a second, before it hardened once again.

“Now take everything Nekoma taught us, and run those bastards into the ground!” 

As he bellowed the last sentence, it seemed as if the feathers on each blackjack card and Mahjong tile floated off their surfaces, and joined together behind their manager, to form a pair of wings with spread with great purpose as their billboard came to life, the casino open once more for a fateful night no one would forget. 

Let us wind back the clock, 2 months ago, to be exact. 

Enter Hinata Shouyo, 1st year university dropout, his wild mop of orange hair describing his life at the moment pretty well as he sat on the sidewalk of a run down café, head in his hands as two men in uniform secured a thick padlock on the door of his flat, his single duffel bag od belongings beside him as they drove away. In the midst of mentally calling himself an idiot over and over again, he couldn’t help but feel his life flashing before his eyes like a dying man. Just 3 weeks ago, he had a home, or at least something close, playing for the Royal Suns gave him a room and a warm meal now and then, which were good enough for him, plus he had friends, and that’s what really mattered to him. Blackjack was his life, his soul, the feeling of the two cards in his hands was one that he would never forget, he remembered every single time he landed a solid 16, the decision to stack or fold alternating in his mind until he let his gut take over. 

People would never have called him intelligent, or calculating, betting high when he felt the deck was in his favour, and low otherwise. No, Hinata was a player of speed, the way he slammed down his cards, his wide eyed face daring anyone to challenge his decision, was what made him a great player. 

He wasn’t a person who hesitated, and that was his strength, by always going with your gut, he became confident, his mind quick to register his position in any game, and his mind acting accordingly. 

It was all so fast, just like the way he’d lost everything. 

Another gang once stumbled into their den one day, starting beef as gangs do, challenging their best players at a duel in place for the one thing all gamblers cared about more than their money, their pride. With equal fire in his gut, Hinata yelled at them to bring it on, despite his friends’ protest. He played them all, his teammates trying but ultimately, cowering in fear of the enemy team. Eventually, Hinata too was beaten, the haughty smirk on a particular raven’s face the last sight he remembered before his world crumbled around him. 

The taller man had gotten up, turned over his cards to reveal a king of spades, and a single Ace, the ultimate hand when all the chips pooled into the middle of the table. How? Hinata had remembered thinking, his gut couldn’t have been wrong, could it? He had always played this way, everyone he learned from, the old men at his local coffee shop, the bickering ladies his grandma would always have over to play a few games, they played that way. So why was this so different, why did he feel like he was being watched, his every move scrutinized by the ebony haired man. It was unsettling, and for no particular reason, Hinata felt like he hated that man. 

And with that, as his life as a player was over, his meager winnings from being part of a small time gang trickled to none. Somewhere along the lines of losing any comfort he had, he found out that the gang that challenged them that day was one of the best in the province, known for recruiting only the best, he made them out to be a strict cult, rather than the rag tag team of homeless boys Hinata had joined. The Blue Label, they were called, Hinata committed the name to memory, tacking it alongside those condescending onyx eyes. 

“What were you doing all these years?” 

His hands gripped at his bangs which were now faltering across his face as he replied that crushing sentence in his face, willing himself not to cry out of anger as he swore to himself for the umpteenth time how he would keep playing the moment he got his life together, how he’d be the best blackjack player in this whole damn continent and screw that bastard into the groun. His knuckles started to turn white, his heart beating at 120 per hour with bottled rage when a cool breeze swept at him. He looked up, the blinding sun blocked by a grey umbrella, sewn with white and purple lilies, it looked expensive, almost as expensive as the waft of cologne he smelt, musk, cedar wood, pink peppercorn and a touch of the very same lilies the umbrella bore. 

“Are you Hinata Shouyo?”

The umbrella holder’s voice asked. Hinata’s face came to focus on a man, his smile was soft, calming like the lilies seemed to suggest, his grey hair, deliberately dyed and not because of age, was styled back over his head. His suit was a darker shade of grey, fitting his slim form. 

The boy nodded blankly, wondering who this person was, but a little too tired to care, his stomach grumbled in 48 hours of starvation to remind him that he had bigger problems than handsome strangers. 

“My name is Sugawara Koushi,”

The man bowed, and extended his hand, a single sliver band on his ring finger, a spine across the center with smaller spine branching out from it. “I’m with Kurasuno Casino,” at this, Hinata looked puzzled, uncharacteristically furrowing his brows. The increased mental capacity needed to process this statement sent his stomach grumbling again, alerting his brain that he did not have the fuel to deal with this. 

The man chuckled kindly, “I understand it must come as a shock,” he started, his hand still extended to him, “Here, let me buy you some lunch, and we can talk then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blackjack:
> 
> You get deal two cards from a 52 card deck, you place your bets before the cards are dealt, the goal is to get as close to, or reach the sum of 21 with your cards (Jack, Queen and King count as 10 units). With the cards you have, you can stack (choose to draw another card to get closer to 21), or fold (not draw a card). If the sum of your cards is more than 21, you lose. The person who's cards add up to the number closest to 21 without going over the number, wins, and takes the money betted by all other players in the game.
> 
> The special case is when a player gets dealt a picture card (Jack, Queen or King) and an ace, in which that player automatically wins.
> 
> Mahjong (Hong Kong Version):
> 
> This is kind of complicated, but I'll try to explain the basics, I may add the details of the rules as the story progresses. The game is played with cuboid tiles which all have pictures carved on them, some have different numbers of symbols, dots and bamboo are common symbols, ranging from one to ten, there are four sets of each just like a deck of cards. There are also other pictures, some function as jokers, some are "flowers" which give you extra cash.
> 
> players start with 13 tiles, and the dealer with 14, the rest of the tiles are arranged in 2 layered stacks along the table, only you can view your tiles. The goal of the game is to match all your tiles in 3 sets of three similar or ascending tiles (such as symbol XXX or perhaps 123, 789, and so on), and 1 set of two tiles (such as XX, @@, 55, and so on). In the case where a set of tiles go in ascending order, all the tiles in that set must be the same symbol (either dots or bamboo), sort of like making a trio of cards with only spades, or only diamond cards.
> 
> every turn, you draw a tile from the stacks, and choose to discard one, playing strategically until you have 3 sets of three tiles, and 1 set of two.


	2. The Fang and the Wing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata is, alas, introduced to Kurasuno.

So, apparently, even in the parts of town where tattling where someone bought their milk could get you beat up, there were rats, or ‘agents’ as Mr. Sugawara called them, “oh just call me Suga,” he had motioned with a flick of his wrist as he sat comfortably in the rich velvet chair of his chosen restaurant. Anyway, these rats would report on the street gamblers to the authorities, who would keep track of them, from where they live and how many laws they break, to playing skills and type. Macau was a gambling city after all. 

Casinos, on special permission, have access to these records, usually because one of these smartasses was counting cards in their casino, or any similar sort of crime, though it was more of a mere annoyance than a reason to arrest the counter. Arrest would prove that the counter had truly outsmarted the casino’s dealers, the crook would go to prison smiling at how he had managed to worm into their perfect system, whilst the reputation of the casino would be lost.

One of the methods some casinos used was to hire the crooks themselves, give them a home and more money than they could ever know what to do with, and make them work as dealers, using the counter’s methods against them. Though, loyalty was hard to buy, so it was more common for these organistions nowadays to pick up strays, people would have lost it all, even crack addicts and alcoholics, gambling for drugs, to join them. They rehabilitate, train and provide for these lost souls as if their pockets were endless, if only because they hoped that with this scheme, they one day might be.

Or so Suga said. 

“Believe me Hinata-kun,” Hinata was slightly taken aback by the charming honourific added to his name. “We do not pity you,” he was obviously aware of how important pride was, “We want you to be a part of Kurasuno, let us be your family,” he smiled his innocent, motherly smile Hinata felt lost in this cut throat city, a spark of genuinity in Suga’s eyes. 

“At least, think about it,”

He slid a black card across the table, his name in Kanji and a phone number below it, beautiful italics in the corner read, “Assitant CEO”. Hinata picked up the card and flipped it over. A flurry of black feathers were embossed on this side, framing a pair of characters in the center, violently white, looking as if they were painted crudely with a brush, he read it out loud, and as he did, he felt the very word call to him

“fly,”

“It’s our motto,” Suga pitched, eyes glowing. 

It didn’t take Hinata a long time to call Suga back, it’s not like he had anywhere else to go, stashing the rest of his earnings from the bonnet of a broken down Honda in an abandoned garage, his idea of a piggy bank, he awaited outside the bus stop Suga had texted to him, though he didn’t say which bus the Orange Haired boy was supposed to get onto. 

Soon, a black stretch rolled up, the front window rolled itself down, and a pair of ray bands greeted Hinata, 

“You Hinata?”

The driver asked aggressively, his hair shaven close to the skull, an unimaginative hairstyle until the light hit his scalp at the right angle, when you see the clear shape of a feather shaved into the side. Hinata glupped, he looked like Yakuza all right, he got the snaking feeling that maybe this was all a ploy, Suga was just a fibbing Mafioso, and this was all a trap to sell his organs on the black market or something, with henchmen like that, but again, he had no choice, there was nowhere else he could run to but into the vehicle and it was for that very reason, that he nodded. 

The man seemed to be shifting his eyes side to side under his glasses, scanning the empty area as if it was coated with security cameras, come to think of it, it wasn’t even that sunny out today, making him question the need for such… robust, sunglasses “Get in,” the bald driver said gruffly, interrupting his wandering mind. Pressing a button, a door on his side opened, and gingerly, Hinata climbed in. 

The moment the door closed, the driver took on a whole new personality, 

“Whooooo!” he whistled loudly into the enclosed space. “I was so cool then, did you see that Noya?” 

Another loud voice came out of nowhere, “Sure did! You were pretty intimidating Tanaka” 

Hinata blinked in confusion, was there a third person in this car? As he looked closer at the slither of the dashboard far in front of him, he saw a flick of blond hair in the reflection from the passenger seat, the flick moved. 

“Yo!”

a head popped to the side from the passenger’s seat, so there was someone riding shotgun, his hair was spiked up high, a blonde streak in the middle gave it character. This man’s face was small, his eyes seeming oversized and full of energy as he grinned and gave Hinata a salute, “welcome to Kurasuno newbie!” 

The driver, Tanaka was it? Glanced quickly at him too, his Raybands now pushed up to rest on his empty scalp, “You got lots to learn, I mean, I may look like just some chauffer to you, but I’m actually one of the best dealers, so you better watch what you say runt.” 

His tone was meant to be obnoxious, but it didn’t really work, maybe it was the blonde’s giggling in the background, or his comic facial expressions as he talked. Hinata was overwhelmed with an urge to smile at the duo, and so he did. 

“So you do smile!” said the mohawkian, who grinned back. 

“I’m Hinata Shouyo,” he offered, hoping to make some friends, filling the hole ever so raw in his heart. 

“Oh we know who you are,” Tanaka yelled from the driver’s seat, his voice box didn’t seem to have a volume control. 

“I’m Nishinoya Yuu,”

The turned head from the passenger’s seat said warmly, he didn’t look to Hinata like a gambler, or someone capable of any malicious task, “and you can call me Tanaka-senpai!” The driver’s voice boomed once again, “Since I am infinitely more senior than you,” he laughed, the sound even more imposing than his voice alone. 

“C’mon man,” the other man cut him off, “he can’t be more than a couple years younger than us,” as this, the baldie let out a groan, but his enthusiasm only faltered for a moment, before his usual demeanor came back, 

“2 years is enough to be a senpai!”

He argued back, and just like that, they forgot about the timid boy in the back of the limo once again, as they argued joyfully, their voices a pleasant soundtrack for the journey, Hinata thought. 

The Casino itself was huge, he’d seen the building from the streets, but he didn’t expect it to be so spacious, so grand. A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling in the lobby as he strode in with the other two. He quickly realized that Nishinoya was tiny compared to Tanaka’s lanky presence, this made him jump with glee inside, maybe he was shorter than Hinata was, finally, a perfectly normal male shorter than the 162cm he stood, he’d have to ask him about that later. 

Both the men wore suits, Tanaka’s with two slits, American style, and Nishinoya’s with one, British given the fit at the waist, and just the right amount of shoulder padding. The bald man was clad in a navy blue assemble, whilst the shorter man’s suit was a dark shade akin to that of oxidized wine. Actually, Nishinoya was the first person Hinata had met, and the only, he would later find, that wore a black dress shirt, his collar buttons undone with no tie, showing off the gleam of pearl buttons. 

“This way!” Nishinoya motioned to a pair of huge oak doors; “I think they’ve already started, but Daichi’s in a good mood today so it’s alright.” 

Hinata hadn’t even finished taking in the lobby yet when another site was bestowed on his eyes, what looked like a VIP room, a single blackjack table sat in the front, next to a Mahjong table, both with intricately carved legs, and gleaming metal sides. The man at the front of the room, sitting facing the door, stood up, 

“Ahh, Hinata Shouyo, pleasure of you to join us.” The other people at the table showed up, a man sitting opposite the starting voice turned around. 

Hinata’s eyes widened larger than they had in weeks. 

Stood at the table, playing blackjack with this so-called Daichi, in a simple grey hoodie was that pair of onyx eyes, those calculating, hawk like eyes of an assassin. 

“You…” 

Hinata stalked up to the front of the room, and to the shock of Tanaka and Nishinoya by the door, grabbed the man’s collar and shoved him up against the nearest wall, surprised himself he even had that kind of strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhhhh snap, Hinata meets his nemesis. 
> 
> WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!?
> 
> Am I the only one who loves Nishinoya's look because C'MON he'd totally wear black and red like the cool fucker he is. 
> 
> Plus See Tanaka's hair, see what I did with it, see how mafia it makes him.


	3. The King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata and Daichi have a private talk, meanwhile, we learn more about the Raven aired boy, Kageyama, and why he sits in Kurasuno's Foyer

The blackjack table clattered to the floor, cards strewn about the French carpet as the smaller boy held the raven to the wall, moving so fast he barely had time to register the shock of the others. 

“You…!”

He didn’t have the words, the speech he planned in those 3 weeks, how he would beat the man to ground in sheer malice, he raised his fist but for some reason couldn’t bare to land it on another person. People tend to associate gambling with violence, but Shouyo, Shouyo was not a violent person, raised by his gentle mother and little sister, no, he couldn’t do it, he lost, fair and square afterall, to the eyes of someone, though he would never admit it out loud, better than he was. 

“What is your problem!”

The scream rang close in his ears, slightly suffocated as the raven he held gripped at his hands, pinning him to the wall by his collar. They glared each other down, a silent conversation seeming to boil between them that no one else could hear, until they were pulled apart, or rather, yanked apart. Nishinoya and Tanaka held Hinata, kicking and struggling in their Mafia grade hold on him, while Daichi put his hand on the other boy’s shoulder, feeling that, although he was less rash, he was every bit as angry at the little mop of orange hair. 

Daichi gestured with a crane of his neck, making Tanaka take complete hold of Hinata, as Nishinoya guarded the other boy. Daichi went up to the orange haired boy and stared him down, it was a scary, calm stare, like the kind a grim reaper might give you before your demise, rare, and unsettling. 

“Kageyama!”

At the order, the lanky boy stood at attention, “your interview is complete, you may go,” his eyes never felt Hinata’s as he talked, his gaze locking him in a mental cage, preventing him from reaching out once more to do what he couldn’t as the taller boy, Kageyama, talked past them. 

It was only when they heard the large, imposing doors shut, that Tanaka let go, and Daichi began walking back to the front of the room, propping the table back up as if the solid mahogany weighed nothing. He picked up the fallen cards silently, until they were all in a neat deck in the middle of the purple velvet. What was the appropriate response to this situation? To these people who wanted to give him a job, a home? He was in no position to bargain, for it was this, or the streets all over again. And yet… he wasn’t sorry, for what he did, his anger now fresh made him sure of that.   
“it interests me,” The broad shouldered man started, in the center of the spotlights overhead the wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes made him seem a lot older, a lot more tired, than he probably was. “What history you have with one of our finest dealers-to-be” he pulled up a chair, and sat down, looking as if he had no intention at all to play, but just to listen. 

“it is troubling to have conflicts between our staff, since the enemy is out there, and not within,”

He raised his feet to rest on the table, and Hinata spied the gold rims on the edges of his crocodile shoes, silently wondering if they were real. 

“Please, sit down,”

It was phrased like a suggestion, but spoken like an order, of which Hinata may have been shot for, if he didn’t obey. With that in mind, he took the chair opposite Daichi, the place where Kageyama initially sat. 

“Now,” daichi took his legs off the table and clasped both his hands together on top of it, a glint of a sliver band catching Hinata’s eye, as if he’s seen it before. 

“tell me everything.” And backed into a corner, Hinata did. 

 

“You have a particular style, Kageyama-kun,”

Nishinoya observed as he dealt the cards once again to the duo at the table. He had decided to calm the boy down by playing a few games of blackjack in the casino, the raven needed to get used to the atmosphere after all. 

Joining them was Suga, whom today, was dressed in a pinstripe suit, a scarf substituting his tie, as if he were cold, it wrapped around his neck, with the ends jutting out nothing less an elegantly, as he always was. Nishinoya stood, while the other two leaned back in their seats, the subject of Hinata Shouyo faded far into the background as they played, nevertheless, Kageyama won almost every round, almost. 

This puzzled the boy, he should be winning every round, these were casino dealers he was up against, what would they know of the desperate tricks street players used that garunteed victory, what would they know of the concentration in his eyes as he watched the cards Nishinoya dealt too intently for him to be playing normally. The point, afterall, is to win, and gambling was a solitary sport, in which there was only one victor. 

Suga took the round at a soild 20 next to Kageyama’s 23, choosing to be ambitious this round was obviously not a good play, but yet again, that would be like 2+2 equaling 5, his calculations were always correct, the method he chose was primitive but that didn’t matter against these airheads. The method in question was to count cards, ancient, it assigned a number of +1 to cards in the player’s favor, 0 to neutral cards, and -1 to cards not in the palyer’s favour, theg point was to bet big and stack more when the total of these running numbers was larger than zero, meaning the deck was in your favour. 

This method was illegalised by casinos a long time ago, but that didn’t matter. As Suga took his winnings, actual winnings, because they didn’t fuck around, Kageyama ran the math through his head one more time, he should have won, he had absolute control over every single game that’s how it always worked. He shuffled uncomfortably in this seat, and Suga smiled at him. 

“Wondering why you’re not winning all the time?” He asked as if he read the boy’s mind. Nishinoya gave his trademark grin. 

“Daichi told me about your playing style,” Suga crossed his legs under the table, “impressive though it is, it’s flawed in a game between more than one opponent.” 

Kageyama wanted to respond by arguing that there was never a real game between more than two people, as only retired sailors and bored housewives played in groups of four, but he held his tongue, waiting to hear what the slender man (no pun intended) had to say. 

“casino dealers are great at picking out card counters,” Nishinoya interjected excitedly, to which Suga didn’t seem to mind. 

This shocked our lone wolf, who never played anywhere except on the streets, where dealers in the shining skyscrapers were laughed at, pseudo players, the gangs called them, they acted to prevent the winning of others instead of to win themselves, what kind of strategy was that? 

One implemented by the government, Kageyama had thought bitterly, they made a fortune out of crushing the dreams of the non-intelligent player, and he, of all people, had always wanted to change that, he had always wanted to be the one they’d write about in all the tabloids, the single man, boy, even, that outsmarted the multimillion dollar business, he wanted to drive his dagger deep into the vaults of these cheating establishments, and bleed them dry. 

A malice hung in his brain, a need for revenge he’d put into every card the day he started playing blackjack, one of the simplest card games there was. To him, there was nothing else. He had watched person after person get swallowed up by this industry, the drunks wandering the streets in the dead of night, yelling at noodle store owners, fidgeting addicts running up to ATM machines who were the robots that proclaimed their sad fate. 

The city of gamblers, Kageyama had scoffed, more like the city of desperados. His mother was amongst this breed of desperados, a barista at one of the finest slaughterhouses in town who fell to a roulette table at the hands of a wealthy foreigner, and became one of the mindless addicts herself. It was at times like this that he was relieved to be an only child, god knows what his mother would have done if he had a younger sibling, worse still, a baby, the kind that could be sold on the black market. 

The boy, crippled as his life was, was at least a genius, or that’s what people would call him. He took interest in the packs of cards his mother had not for gambling at first, but just to empty all the cards out of the box, spread them across the floor, and start to sort them, spades, clubs, hearts and diamonds, as the hireachy went. He’d stack them all back in order, count up from the bottom of the deck, and recalled the card in the sequence. 

This entertained the 10 year old, and he started to randomize the cards. Watching the men at the local meat bun stall, he learned to shuffle, his eyes paying careful attention to the position of each card, as they were rearranged, he would fan out the deck, and ask himself where the 9 of clubs was, his hand would scan over the pile, visualize the organised deck, and replayed the shuffling in his head, where did all the cards land in this new order, where was it now and sure enough, he’d always pull out the 9 of spades. 

No card could hide, he had grown to believe, he’d always find the right one no matter how complicated, he increased his mental load by doing two identical decks, even three, and he would still be able to find the single joker, in a mixed pile. 

Perhaps it was that kind of analytical skill, and pulled him into the Blue Label, and thus out of school. They were geniuses too, just like him, only with a cunning edge, he liked the money, and loved the fame, but Kageyama was only interested in winning, getting better, sharper, because he had a goal, a goal to one day conquer this damn city, and sit on it’s throne. 

As he confessed this to his team, they laughed at him, in mocking him they came up with a nickname “king” they would call him. At first he didn’t really mind, but soon it grew on him like an ugly fungus he desperately wanted to peel off, and failed to do so. He became more and more alone, growing distant in the mockery and casualness in the games the rest of his team played. He felt personally insulted when they didn’t take a game seriously, even if they were playing over a couple of beers. “It’s just a game man,” they’d say, and Kageyama would flip the table, and walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This backstory just fell out, hopefully the card counting descriptions and such didn't confuse anyone.
> 
> By the way, conspiring against players who win too much too frequently is actually something Casinos do, and they do hire specially trained personnel to do it.


	4. The Road to Royalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn more about Kageyama's past, and about Hinata's future

“You think this is a game!?” 

He would scream, and they would cower at his wrath, “This is my life, I don’t know about your scumbags but I’m actually trying to make something out of myself here!” 

Because though geniuses and MIT dropouts they were, they were street rats, wasting their lives away with nowhere else to go, scurrying in their little cardboard box Kageyama felt he could only grow so big until that box was no longer enough, he needed something larger, he needed to be playing more than just drunks and cocaine addicts. 

And that’s when Kurasuno called. 

Suga had appeared to him, a grim reaper in his grey suit and embroided umbrella, the mole at the corner of his right eye framing the light grey eyes that made him gently beautiful as a man. He stood with quiet pride; extending his hand he led Kageyama into the fog that was his new life. 

It all seemed too good to be true at first, the apartment, the wages, even clothes and a proper toothbrush, because Suga was nothing if not detailed. As he took the boy to lunches and explained to him the job, Kageyama couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched, scrutinized, as if there were tiny feelers extending from behind the grey haired young man, probing him, from the way he held his fork to his choice of dessert and the way he sat, he felt all this information being catalogued in the other’s brain. 

In conclusion, Suga looked harmless, but he was sure, from experience, that beneath the soft dress shirts and angelic smile lay a god of psychological warfare. 

And that’s why he had kept his mouth shut, because he didn’t want to disclose himself even more than he had already. He didn’t want to give Kurasuno the pleasure, through Suga, to destroy him if they needed to, he had to come out on top of this, he had to, and to do that required betraying them all, which was fine, he just had to earn their trust first. 

“In Casinos,” Suga continued, “games of blackjack may consist of up to 5 players plus the dealer, and in Mahjong, 4 players, one of which is always a member of staff, just to keep things safe.” 

You mean to make sure players don’t win too much, Kageyama thought bitterly. “In such games, it is common for a group of friends to play at the same table, and together, conspire against the dealer.” This struck a blank with the raven-haired boy, teamplay? In gambling of all things? 

Suga must’ve registered the look on his face again, because he continued, pointing at Nishinoya across the table. “in this situation, if you were a player at Noya-kun’s table, I could ask to join you, since I wander these halls freely,” he gestured to the large space around them, “what you wouldn’t know is that I am not a player like you, I am a partner of this casino, and Noya would know that too.” Nishinoya gave a thumbs-up. “As I sit down, Noya would shuffle the deck, and as such, makes sure I get the cards I need to win, by going bust himself.” Kageyama’s eyes widened. 

Had these smiling dumbasses manage to offset his count, by deliberately stacking and folding to the rhythm of each other, they could, to some extent coordinate the count, and fool Kageyama into thinking the deck was in his favour, when it wasn’t. Together, they pulled a blanket over his eyes, and made him see only what they wanted him to see, blinded from the true nature of the game. 

“You’ve won the last five rounds,” Suga continued to explain, “so you start to get confident, and bet a slightly higher sum than you would normally, for a +2 deck.” He could count too, +2, that was the favour of the deck he’d done, how had this man done all that, and managed to communicate with Noya at the same time. 

“At this, we decide to execute our strategy to break your streak, and take your winnings.” Nishinoya regrouped the cards. “The casino’s dealers learn special signals that floormasters like myself would show,” he tapped his index finger on the table to illustrate, once, twice, three times, then the middle finger twice, discreet, cunning. “That tells them how to shuffle, or play the game- 

Kageyama cut him off, “to prevent players from winning…” he finished, but Suga held up his hand, “To prevent crooks, from stealing our game.” 

Cold chill encompassed the table. These people were Ludacris, Kageyama thought, since when was gambling the casino’s game? The casinos took all the joy out of gambling, and turned it into an addiction, into a way to steal people’s money, and turn them into zombies. 

The sight of it all, these grand halls, the sounds of the mahjong tiles, knocking each other in a mad shuffle, the slap of the cards against the tables, the groans and moans characteristic of a person’s soul being sucked out to fuel the light of the chandelier that hung above them, fury brewed in his gut, it all made him want to crush this industry, much, much more. 

“I can’t have my staff constantly trying to kill each other,” 

Daichi was matter of fact about it, his hands big and broad like his shoulders were, his sharp appearance doing nothing to hide the dark circles under his eyes, there were even a few grey glints in his hair, premature, Hinata assumed. 

“I understand your rage, anyone would be angry in your position,” his tone was even, strong, it filled the empty room, “but he’s on your team now, you don’t have to like him, but we’re going to employ him much like we’re going to employ you, so you two are going to have to work together.” 

He started to sound less like a Mafioso and more like a father, lecturing a child about cooperating with a sibling. 

Reluctantly, and perhaps not altogether truthfully, Hinata nodded, eyes affixed to the deck of cards, remaining unmoved throughout their talk. He didn’t know why, but his hands longed to hold them, he’d never gone without the familiar waxed paper in his hands for more than two days, and he didn’t realize how much he missed it, until minutes ago. 

“Let us play a round,” Daichi started, hand creeping over the deck. Hinata’s eyes lit up, in one compulsive motion he touched the cards first.

“Can I…”

The larger man seemed to know what he was asking, “of course,” he backed his own hand away, and Hinata snatched up the pile. With his hands on autopilot he shuffled the cards, enjoying the feel of the tips on his palms, his eyes glittering. 

At this, Daichi knew he was going to hire Hinata too, because someone who loved to play these games that much, must have great potential. Besides, no matter what level of skill he actually played with, the speed and ease of which he shuffled cards, was the sign of someone who had played millions of games.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama yells "Do you think this is a game?!" overlooking the fact that yes, Kageyama-kun, blackjack IS indeed a game... ^_^""

**Author's Note:**

> Blackjack: 
> 
> You get deal two cards from a 52 card deck, you place your bets before the cards are dealt, the goal is to get as close to, or reach the sum of 21 with your cards (Jack, Queen and King count as 10 units). With the cards you have, you can stack (choose to draw another card to get closer to 21), or fold (not draw a card). If the sum of your cards is more than 21, you lose. The person who's cards add up to the number closest to 21 without going over the number, wins, and takes the money betted by all other players in the game. 
> 
> The special case is when a player gets dealt a picture card (Jack, Queen or King) and an ace, in which that player automatically wins. 
> 
> Mahjong (Hong Kong Version): 
> 
> This is kind of complicated, but I'll try to explain the basics, I may add the details of the rules as the story progresses. The game is played with cuboid tiles which all have pictures carved on them, some have different numbers of symbols, dots and bamboo are common symbols, ranging from one to ten, there are four sets of each just like a deck of cards. There are also other pictures, some function as jokers, some are "flowers" which give you extra cash. 
> 
> players start with 13 tiles, and the dealer with 14, the rest of the tiles are arranged in 2 layered stacks along the table, only you can view your tiles. The goal of the game is to match all your tiles in 3 sets of three similar or ascending tiles (such as symbol XXX or perhaps 123, 789, and so on), and 1 set of two tiles (such as XX, @@, 55, and so on). In the case where a set of tiles go in ascending order, all the tiles in that set must be the same symbol (either dots or bamboo), sort of like making a trio of cards with only spades, or only diamond cards. 
> 
> every turn, you draw a tile from the stacks, and choose to discard one, playing strategically until you have 3 sets of three tiles, and 1 set of two.


End file.
